Ex-Laos bar worker reveals what goes into ‘devastating’ cheap drinks & boss’s chilling reaction to ‘dead’ party-goer
A FORMER barman in Laos has said it is “unsurprising” alcohol served up in the tourist hotspot could kill.
Alasdair Gill worked in party hub Vang Vieng where six tourists are feared to have drunk booze contaminated with methanol before dying.
Brit lawyer Simone White, 28, Australian teens Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones – who stayed at the Nana Backpack hostel – are among the victims of the suspected mass poisoning in the town.
Gill worked at a bar in Vang Vieng when he was 19 and has revealed what went into free and cheap drinks dished out to tourists.
He said Western tourists would flock to the bars and would accept a free bucket each between 8pm and 9pm with “eager excitement”.
They contained half a bottle of local whisky, cola and an energy drink rumoured to contain amphetamines, Gill told The Times.
But the ex-bar worker said the whiskey “isn’t what anyone’s had before” – and instead one of the cheapest local products available.
Gill added: “Every beer we sold would make up for seven buckets handed out.”
Another bucket made up to sell to tourists known as a “disco bucket” was filled with weed, mushrooms, opium, whiskey and the energy drink – all blended together with banana.
Describing the drink as “unsurprisingly devastating”, Gill told how on one shift he saw a European tourist face down in the river, unconscious.
Locals rushed to help, but his boss’s reaction shocked him.
Gill said: “My manager hit me with the harrowing line: ‘Someone parties themselves out cold every two weeks here. The count was about 30 last year.”
A decade on from when Gill worked in Vang Vieng, hundreds of tourists still head to the remote town every year.
Gill believes Vang Vieng’s isolated location makes it “something of a lawless playground”.
He added: ” That it was likely alcohol that was the killer is also unsurprising — the cheap homemade whisky was almost a PR gimmick, with no effective way of regulating it.
“It made people a different kind of drunk altogether.
“It was like trying booze for the first time for many and you’d see the glazed faces of people in the middle of blackouts.”
It comes as police in Laos, south east Asia, continue to probe the deaths of six tourists.
What is methanol?
By Sam Blanchard, Health Correspondent
METHANOL is a super-toxic version of alcohol that may be present in drinks if added by crooks to make them stronger or if they are brewed or distilled badly.
The consequences can be devastating because as little as a single shot of contaminated booze could be deadly, with just 4ml of methanol potentially enough to cause blindness.
Prof Oliver Jones, a chemist at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, said: “The body converts methanol to formic acid.
“Formic acid blocks the action of an enzyme that is critical to how the body uses oxygen to generate energy.
“If it stops working, cells cannot take up or use oxygen from the blood and lack of oxygen causes problems in a range of organs as the cells start to die.
“Symptoms of methanol poisoning include vomiting, seizures and dizziness.
“The optic nerve seems to be particularly vulnerable to methanol toxicity, so there is the potential for temporary or permanent blindness, and even death.
“While thankfully rare, methanol poisoning is very serious, and treatment should be given at a hospital.”
An unexpected but key way of treating methanol poisoning is to get the patient drunk with normal alcohol – known as ethanol – to distract the liver and stop it processing the methanol.
Nervous backpackers in Laos are now avoiding taking free shots amid fears they could be laced with methanol – an industrial chemical often used in bootleg alcohol.
Local police detained the owner and manager of the hostel amid their probe.
Hostel manager and bartender Duong Duc Toan previously denied that any drinks served there could have made the holidaymakers ill.
Among the victims of the feared mass poisoning was 28-year-old Simone White.
The lawyer, from Orpington, Kent, died last Thursday after being offered free shots which were allegedly spiked.
Several tourists remain in hospital.